The invention relates to cooking processes, and more particularly to a system and method for slow cooking and then browning products such as meat, roasts or patties.
There have been disclosed a number of different systems for cooking food products, particularly on a continuous feed basis. These have included systems which cook and brown in the same oven atmosphere and systems wherein cooking and browning are performed separately. It has been known to cook a food product in one step, and brown the product in a separate step, as in cosmetic browning simulating grill marks disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,089,260.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,884,213 disclosed a cooking system involving high temperature air impingement on a meat product in order to effect browning. The air, on striking the product, rendered some of the fats and oils of the product into tiny droplets which were then carried by the air. The air was recirculated so as not to require continuous heating of fresh air up to the high browning temperature, and thus a recirculating mass of air carrying a high content of fat droplets was continuously recirculated through the browning environment.
A serious problem with such systems as just described, especially when used with meat products, was that they were continuously depositing the fat droplets on the walls and other surfaces of the cooking oven. These surfaces were required to be cleaned of such deposits daily (or every eight hours) and were extremely difficult to remove, having been cooked into shellac-like form onto the oven surfaces. The cleaning problems were so severe as to make such systems not economical.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome the problems of prior art cooking systems.